If You Love Someone
by LJ Summers
Summary: Mary Alice Brandon is beloved of the night-doctor at the Insane Asylum in Biloxi, Mississippi. He frees her, changes her and takes her away, not knowing what the future will hold. Canon Tour Entry. Warning: Sexual assault conjecture from pre-story event.


My thanks to my adorable beta, **KATMOM**, who encourages and lets me go goofy in private emails. She is awesome.

This was my entry for the Pre-Twilight Round of The Canon Tour. I didn't win, place or show, but my beta took first place! :)

My thanks to **katinki** for her Russian input!

* * *

><p><strong>If You Love Someone...<strong>

"Mama! Mama, come back! I promise I won't have any more visions! I promise!"

Small hands once again beat on the door to the patient's room as moonlight flooded the corridor. The physician on duty – a specialist whose ability to soothe the patients at the facility was greatly appreciated – felt his chest tighten. If he had had a functioning heart, he knew it would have lurched within him to hear the girl's pitiful, hopeless promises. She had been making this same promise for years.

Part of his job, here at the Biloxi Institute for the Disturbed, was to make sure it was quiet and peaceful during the night. He admitted to having a special knack for this – his kind often did. Humans, even those for whom sanity was a distant memory, succumbed to the glamour of the vampire.

"Hush, Mary Alice, hush," he murmured at the door, now. His hands did not fumble with keys – they did not need to as there was no one for whom he had to perform. Within Mary Alice's room, all was shadowed as he opened metal door. It creaked and a fleck of paint drifted from the frame to land on his shoulder. He brushed it off absently while studying his charge. She was his favorite. "It's me. Dr. Yaroslav."

She slumped to the floor, her tiny body – she was only four-eight, though she was sixteen years old, according to her records – topped by ragged hair that fell over her knees as she sat. No recognition did she offer, and he inhaled deeply, trying to decipher why she was so unresponsive to him.

Then, he smelled it and swore out loud, but quietly. "_Yob tvoyu mat'_." Fury burned through his muscles and he slammed his fist into the door frame, bending it. He barely noticed. Crouching, he did not touch his precious little one. "Who, _maya krasaveetsa_?" She was his little beauty, his darling, his sweetheart, and so he called her when it was just the two of them. "Who was here?"

His words echoed in an ominous, danger-filled whisper off the sharp edges and plain walls of her room. Though she was not a danger to anyone, she had proven to be so to herself and so much of what might have given her solace had been taken from her. In truth, he did not believe her to be insane at all.

He was ready to drain those who had hurt her. Assaulted her. Left their vile human fluids in this room where his Mary Alice was confined. No, he would not drain them. He would _slay_ them, leaving their corpses to rot in the Mississippi sun. The crows would feast.

"I saw them coming, but no one believed me." Her whisper was broken, cracked along the edges, making a hollow sound in the thick air between the two of them. "They said they had read about 'female hysteria' and were going to try –"

"_Nyet!_" Yaroslav shouted, hitting the floor and cracking the paving stone under his hand. "Dear one, this is _not_ a practice anymore. This was an excuse to hurt you." He extended his hand to her as he might a wounded bird. She did not respond, but he had endless patience. "Can you tell me who they were?"

"Yes," she whispered, her body trembling as if she were experiencing an electrical shock treatment. She lifted her head so that he saw two large, gray eyes peering through the haphazard locks of her inky hair. "But if I tell you, they'll know and – and I can't get out of here, Doctor. I can't. And you're only here at night..." She stopped trembling and reached with what he deemed was remarkable bravery to capture his outstretched hand in both of hers. "Can you get me out of here?"

It was evidence of how desperate she was that she asked. Yaroslav had watched her deal with heartbreak and sorrow and confusion and anger in the time he had known her. Never, though, had she asked to leave. His mind traced a hundred different scenarios as he rose to his full height – five-ten, which had been tall when he was human – and paced her small room. His footsteps swished on the floor, not quite silent, as he extended his senses to hear what he could in the other rooms. Amelia, three doors down, was muttering in her sleep. She had had visitors that afternoon and they always left her restless.

"Mary Alice," he said on a sigh. "I – if I did, now, you might be caught and then they would bring you back and it would be worse for you."

She erupted into a sound that was a cross between a disbelieving laugh and a wrenching sob. "Worse? How?" Vibrant, angry energy bounced from her body as she gestured with jerky motions. "What is there for me? What can possibly get worse?"

He came to her, wrapping his arms gently about her tiny form. She was so thin, but he felt the curves of her maturing body even so. Curves that had apparently attracted the filthy excuses for medical attendants here in this "hospital." "_Maya krasaveetsa, _if you were caught and brought back, you would be restrained. All the time. Or drugged. And your mind, my dearest girl. What would you have left in your mind? They might lobotomize you."

"Make me like you," she murmured against his hard, silent chest. "Make me like you, then I can live in the dark, too."

A yearning such as he had not felt in a long time made him tremble around her. "I will. If you can reach adulthood. I will." He breathed over her head, smiling when she did in the scent of his breath. She inhaled deeply, burrowing her nose through his white coat and shirt to nuzzle his undershirt. He imagined she did not feel his physical response as she sought what comfort he could provide her in this way. She did not need to feel a man that way ever again.

"Who did it?" he asked again, his breath sifting through the hair on her head. "Tell me, Mary Alice."

Her voice was flat and distant. "Malcolm and Bailey, and the matron came, too. Because she said it wouldn't be right if she didn't."

He could imagine the leering looks of the men and the strange, feverish light in his memory of the woman. Venom gushed in his mouth, forcing him to swallow before he drooled onto his beloved girl. "She is evil." He would slaughter them, dislocating bones...

In his arms, Mary Alice stiffened, her head cocked and eyes half-lidded. "Ohhh, Doctor... Ohhhh." She blinked and met his gaze with her own wide one. "You're going to kill them..."

She did not sound unhappy about the prospect. She sounded almost...thirsty. She was _gifted_. And, he hoped, when she was just a little older...

She would make an amazing vampire.

But not tonight. He had work to do, both "on the clock" as they said, and _off_.

**{ x x x }**

Bailey lived in a rooming house. He was a dapper young man, as such things were counted in this time and place. He did not have an automobile, but he did have a wide collection of collars, suspenders and nappy hair pomade so that he always "smelled fine like wine." His red hair was indeed slicked back as Yaroslav turned the knob of the door to the room. Bailey was long and lean and liked the ladies, as his sharp bow-tie was ready to attest that evening.

"Hey-hey, Dr. Y! How ya doin', puddin' pie?" Then, he paused in the act of shining one shoe. "What are you doing in my room?"

"What were you doing in hers?" Yaroslav asked, his voice rough with the need to tear and bite and rend.

Bailey's heart sped and his confident demeanor melted away. Fear exploded from his pores as he was confronted with a vampire who was not in any way trying to seem to be anything else. Yaroslav relished the terror, smiled into Bailey's wide, bloodshot eyes, and shut the door quietly behind him. "I'm here on behalf of – of a friend. A friend you have not treated well at all." He crossed the room in the blink of a human's eye, grasping Bailey's suspenders in cold, hard fingers. "A friend who deserves only to be treated with love and respect, you have molested and violated."

Bailey's breath came in shallow pants, his heart racing faster as his skin went fish-belly pale. Yaroslav only wished that Mary Alice could see it happen. "I – I don't know who ya mean."

"Mary Alice."

"Hey, I was only, like, uh – what did she say? She's crazy, you know that. You can't believe anything those people say. They'll just rant and rant and –"

His words were cut off with a sharp shriek as Yaroslav broke his neck.

**{ x x x }**

Malcolm met a similar end, less than an hour after Bailey breathed his last. His lifeless body – greasy skin and all – fell with a sickening type of thud, and gas hissed out of his open, half-toothless mouth. Disgusting.

He could not get to the matron before his shift started, so he returned to the small room that was his own residence and cleaned up in the washtub. He did not require many conveniences, but he did enjoy running water. This he had, though the room was small. After cleaning up, Yaroslav tucked a small volume of poetry into his trouser pocket. She might enjoy reading it with him.

In her room, after he had "done his rounds," as the humans said, the doctor lowered himself to the floor, beckoning for her to join him. "I have news, _maya krasaveetsa._"

"You killed Malcolm and Bailey," she stated, lowering herself so that she fit under his arm as she hunched on the floor.

Surprised, he stared at her. "You...saw...that?" He was both pleased and regretful.

"I felt it." After a pause, she added, "Thank you, Doctor."

"Please, call me Yaroslav."

He felt her skin heat at his intimate tone. "Yaroslav. Thank you."

"You are welcome. I have also brought you a present," he told her, slipping the small volume of poetry out with the hand that was not on her shoulder. "Shall I read to you?"

"It's so dark..."

"It does not matter to me," he assured her. "Hush, my little one. My sweetheart. Hush."

Thus began a pattern for them that lasted until her eighteenth birthday.

He never had been able to take his vengeance on the matron.

**{ x x x }**

Clouds drifted lazily over the skies as Yaroslav reported for his shift. He was nervous – for possibly the first time in his existence as a vampire. Tonight, it was Mary Alice Brandon's birthday. Tonight would be his last as Dr. Yaroslav. Tonight, they would run away together.

It was an unpleasant shock to see the matron on duty. After the deaths of Bailey and Malcolm, she had kept close to others at all times. She had a housemate, another woman whom Yaroslav privately believed was a lover, but other than the scents of both combined all over their house and on the matron's person, there was no definitive proof. The people who chose to work in an asylum were often social outcasts of one kind or another.

"Dr. Yaroslav," the matron said, her voice firm and commanding. "It was one of your patient's birthday today, and her family came to see her. She was – quite distressed when they left."

"Oh? Who?" he inquired, feigning ignorance and distance.

"Brandon. We had to restrain her. She should be ready to come out of the cold-pack in about forty-five minutes."

Fury ripped through him, but he controlled it by merely clenching his jaw. His Mary Alice! His dear one! Wrapped in sheets soaked in ice water and bound! Curses flooded his mind, but he masked them with a nod and polite expression. "I will see to her release, then. Thank you." On a whim that was as good as reconnaissance, he turned to the files to access the patient charts for his rounds. "So she had a little family party. Do _you_ have any plans this evening, Matron?"

"No," the woman said, sounding distracted as she pulled her coat off the hook in the staff room. "My roommate is at a family reunion for a week, so I think I will spend the evening reading. I hope you have half as peaceful a night," she concluded, catching up her handbag and walking past him, her short hair mussed in the back from her coat collar.

That was...good to know. He wondered why he had not thought to ask the woman her plans outright, before. The dynamics of events might just be altered a little.

Once the shift change was complete, Yaroslav wasted no time hurrying to Mary Alice's room. He heard only her whispers, as if she were talking to herself.

And then, as he drew nearer, he heard the words with more clarity.

"Soon. He promised. Soon. He'll be here. Soon. I just know it. I know it. They won't even – even care. No, they won't. Soon. He promised."

Unlocking the door with furious impatience, Yaroslav was loosing the restraints that bound her within two beats of her heart. "_Maya krasaveetsa!_ I am here. I have come." She was wearing only the thinnest of cotton shifts under the still-wet sheeting. He swept her into his chilled arms and wrapped her in a blanket from her bed. She was shivering and he did all that he could to rub her skin to warm her. "I am here. I am so sorry you have been put through this, my sweetheart. My dear one." Pressing light kisses to her forehead, he endeavored to do what he could to encourage her body to grow warmer.

"You came."

"You knew I would."

"Yes... I'm so glad."

She calmed, but he did not want to release her just yet. It was comforting and tempting both to hold her. "I have a present for you," he whispered, allowing himself to nuzzle her hair.

He heard her catch her breath before swallowing. Her heart was racing with strength in her breast and he relished the sound – especially knowing that the sound would cease, soon, if she desired it. "You do?"

"Yes."

Her small form spun with alacrity in his arms. Still partly draped in the blanket, she was momentarily sitting on his lap, bare arms around his shoulders as her eyes shone in the minimal moonlight that managed to eke its way into her room. "I have a gift for you, too," she whispered.

Surprised, he smiled and pressed his forehead to hers. "What is it?"

"Me. Myself."

"Wha–?" he began. But his ignorance was short-lived as Mary Alice pressed herself against him, her lips on his, her hands moving restlessly in his hair. It was wicked, it was delightful. It was every fantasy come to life, almost. It was wrong, but so, so right...

His body tightened with vampiric arousal and he fought his inner demon to be careful, to be gentle. "Are you sure?" he gasped, when she left his lips to breathe. "I don't want you to feel obligated..."

Laughter. "Doctor... I love that you treat me like a real person. I feel like a woman when you are here. I sleep all day, when they let me, so that we can have the night."

"I had noticed," he returned, accepting her invitation and running his nose down her delicate throat, over her collarbones, tugging at the blanket so that it fell away. She shivered, but he could sense that she was fully aroused. This was what she wanted. "As you wish, then, sweet one."

He tasted her, his cool tongue lapping at her fragrant skin – Mary Alice had her own beguiling scent, and just then it was accented with wanton desire. He relished it. Cherished it, and even mourned a little as he did so, knowing that her humanity would be ending soon.

"This...this is what I wanted," she whispered, "what I saw, with you. Years ago, do you remember?" Her body arched as she offered herself to him. "Oh, please, show me..."

Layers fell away, his body a gift to her as hers was to him. The moon's angle changed, shining on their skin before disappearing to the other side of the Asylum. She was nearly silent as they discovered each other, but she communicated her pleasure clearly to him with the light in her eyes, the tilt of her smile, the freedom of her joy.

He immersed himself in her – her desire, her humanity. Relishing the pulsing of her blood, the beating of her heart, the glow in her eyes, he was utterly fulfilled.

Sated, the hospital quiet and still around them, he finally pulled in a deep breath. "Mary Alice Brandon, do you still want to be like me?"

Her answer came without hesitation. "Yes. It is what I was meant for. I've seen it."

With an edged anticipation, he pulled himself away from her. "Then we shall make it happen. You must get dressed."

She grinned up at him, but he could smell her heightened, nervous adrenaline. It was like adding spice to her personal aroma. "You, too! What do I do?" She made a quick round of her room, throwing on clothing and making her bed. The gurney used for the cold-pack they both avoided as if it were a poisonous snake.

"You trust me. You let me carry you out of here and you trust me to take care of you." He cupped her small, elfin face between his palms. "I love you. But the next half-hour or so will be very tense. You need not to fight me, all right, _maya krasaveetsa_?"

Eyes wide, she nodded solemnly before pressing her lips to his hand. "All right."

After a moment, he slid his white coat to her shoulders. "Put this on. I know it is too large, but do it anyway."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Good. Now come with me."

She nodded, her butchered hair spiky with their earlier exertions as well as the residue from her cold-pack. Yaroslav opened the door and, ushering his beloved into the corridor, he scooped her into his arms and ran.

If anyone had been on duty, they would have seen a blurring of air and thought it was the ghost of a former, unhappy patient of the Biloxi Asylum for the Disturbed. A wandering spirit, trying to reconcile its old life with its new one, perhaps. Such an assessment would not have been too far from truth, for both Yaroslav and Mary Alice were doing so, in their own ways.

He did not think again of the Asylum as he ran with his beloved in his arms. She was with him, he would change her, and they could spend eternity together. He would no longer be alone and she would have someone with her who loved her wholeheartedly and believed in her.

Outside of town, beyond the boundaries of what would be called "civilization," he had constructed a cabin. There was not much to it, but he had made it sturdy. There were clothes in it for his dear one, for she would need something to wear after her change. And there were more clothes, as well. For both of them. Her first meals were likely to be...messy.

"Yaroslav?"

Reaching their "hideout," he stood still, holding her yet in his embrace. "We're here. How do you feel?"

She giggled a little, surprising him. "Dizzy!" With a squirm, she asked to be let go and he allowed her to free herself so that she slid down his body until her feet touched the leafy ground. "Where are we? You went so fast!"

"You will be able to move so quickly as well. Soon."

"That will be fun."

He sighed and wrapped his arms tightly around her. "We are at our new abode, dear one. If you are ready, we can go inside and – and I will change you."

Her eyes looked so wise as she turned to face him. It was dark, but he saw every detail about her. The black winged brows, knowing expression, loving lips. She moistened those lips and nodded slowly. "I am ready. Will you tell me what to expect?"

"I will be with you every moment, explaining everything in detail," he assured her. He had not told her before exactly what would happen to her. She had been trapped and sometimes was unstable, due to the unspeakable atrocities committed upon her. Shock treatments, cold-packs, drugs... He did not want to further destabilize her mind by the horror she would experience becoming a vampire. "But first, I will have to bite you."

She accepted this without comment and let him lead her inside the lightless cabin and the bed upon which she would experience her change. Without a word, she turned to him, put her arms around him, and rubbed her face against his chest. He caressed her hair tenderly, memorizing again the feel of her humanity, the pounding of her heart.

And, within moments, the wonder of her body as he took her again. At the height of their mutual ecstasy, he kissed her throat, apologized, and bit her.

**{ x x x }**

"This pain, my dearest one, is the first memory you will likely have as a vampire. You will remember this; it is the price of immortality." She hissed and groaned and growled, but Mary Alice did not scream. Not yet. He was enormously proud of her. "You are changing, Mary Alice. Already I can smell the differences in you."

"Smell?" she managed to gargle out over the understood agony in her body.

"Your senses will become acute. Yes, smell. Your body's biology is changing."

Hours passed. Days. Mary Alice grew quiet as the sun set on her final day of transformation. Her skin was creamy white, now. Her hair thick, if short, with that rich hue of blue-black that people sometimes painted. Her lips were the color of rose petals, her tiny body a work of art. Like a ballerina, she moved to relieve the inner torment of her change.

"When you open your eyes, little one, you will see so much. You can smell it already, I know. Do not think you are crazy. It is real."

"Not crazy!"

"No, you're not," he reminded her, his fingertips stroking her face. "I have new clothes for you, so when you are ready..."

Her heart pounded, desperately trying to keep working as it was compelled to do. At the last beat of it, Mary Alice shrieked. Birds cried out in answer before a flurry of motion told Yaroslav that his beloved girl had scared away all living things in the vicinity.

With an audible click, Mary Alice opened her eyes. What had been clear gray was now burning crimson. "Fire! Hell! You put me through Hell," she whispered, her hand at her throat. She launched herself at him, fingers curled into claws. "Who are you? What did you do to me?"

Sorrow arced through him, leaving pain in its wake. "I'm Yaroslav, my dear one. You are Mary Alice Brandon and I love you desperately." He held her hands away from his skin with a huge effort; small though she was, newborn strength was still nothing to take lightly. "Come. I will show you how to quench the burn."

She stilled and he could hear venom gushing into her mouth. "Yes. Show me!"

Though the sun had left the sky, light lingered. "Let us get you dressed, _maya krasaveetsa_."

"What is that?"

"My darling, my dear one. It is Russian."

"Teach me!"

"I will," he said smoothly. "I will teach you anything I know. Everything I know. But first, we will get you into a new dress and we will feed."

"Burning..." She held still while he tossed a light dress over her perfect, naked body. He did not bother with undergarments or shoes.

"I know. Come. Hold my hand and I will guide you."

She resisted at first, her nose up and sniffing audibly, but at last, she acquiesced. He was taking a huge risk with a newborn in a populated region, but there was one particular person who needed to meet the girl she had wronged...

Through the twilight they ran, two pale people, hands clasped. Through trees, along the outskirts of Biloxi, Yaroslav kept his charge from bolting, from running too fast, from escaping his control. "I am taking you to a feast for your palate. Do not run from me."

She halted, almost vibrating in her utter stillness. "I see her. Do I know her?"

"Yes. And she has gravely wronged you."

"Will I feed on her?" Mary Alice sounded curious, but not concerned. It was the nature of the vampire to see humans as prey, so Yaroslav was encouraged. "Will – will it slake this burning?" she rasped.

"Yes, yes you will."

"I see where I am to go! Thirsty! So thirsty!" Her voice, high and musical, carried back to Yaroslav as he tried to catch up to her. She had taken off so abruptly and she was so fast...!

But she had seen, apparently, where to go and he marveled as she reached the matron's house, where she "roomed" with her friend.

Without any finesse, Mary Alice leapt through a thin glass window on the first floor.

"What? How?" the matron shouted, sounding more indignant than anything.

"Mary Alice Brandon, and through your window." The explanation sounded like a jest to Yaroslav, who waited outside while his beloved slaked her thirst with desperate growls and slavering sounds within.

**{ x x x }**

"What do you see?" It was the same question he asked whenever his beloved froze in just this manner. She would be doing nothing or anything, hunting, sewing a new dress with her own skilled fingers, or just running – and then she would stop, head cocked, eyes half-lidded with concentration.

Mary Alice was a gifted vampire indeed. They had spent several months together as she learned how to be an immortal. He taught her the laws of their kind, showed her how to most effectively hunt their prey, and answered all her questions.

They made love daily, and she would sometimes laugh when she envisioned future campers coming along, wondering what had caused the dents in solid granite.

Coming out of her trance, Mary Alice blew a breath through pursed lips. "A man. His hair is light sunlight. He is with another man who has hair like – like the leaves in autumn in Pennsylvania." They had run to New York days after her change. Mary Alice had run from him again and the ensuing deaths had been difficult to cover.

"Again? You see them often," he responded, a bit perturbed. She had said she had seen men. "What about their eyes?"

"These have eyes like gold. Not the other one," she said, leaping to Yaroslav's back and kissing his neck. "He had eyes like rubies and was slaughtering others like us. You know he worries me."

Reaching around himself, he tugged on her legs so that she was in his arms. "And these others do not?"

"They were running after a mountain lion. On a mountain. Why?"

"I have no idea. Perhaps they were bored."

**{ x x x }**

The year was 1923 when Yaroslav was forced to a wrenching realization. They were in Wisconsin and had found a farm in the middle of prosperous fields. Mary Alice's eyes were black with thirst, but she had not wanted to hunt, lately. "I see what their families say and do, after, and – and it hurts, Yaro," she would tell him. "When I decide not to feed, the visions change and they are all...happy. How can I take that from them?"

"What about these two?" he asked at the farm. "Can you feed, my dearest one?"

"I must..."

They stole into the farmhouse and into the older couple's bedroom, each taking one to drink. They had been so quiet – no one was disturbed. Yet Mary Alice slumped, devastated, in the corner of the room.

"He would be so disappointed in me..."

Jealousy warred with curiosity and, even then, a certain kind of sick knowledge as Yaroslav hunkered down in front of her. Caressing her hands where they clasped over her knees, he whispered, "Who?"

"Him. I don't know his name, but I will, and he only hunts from animals. He wants us all to hunt from animals."

"What?"

"To save the lives of humans. Because we were human, once." Her body vibrated with expectation all at once. "I can do that! I can save their lives and drink from animals! I can! And then they won't be disappointed in me!"

Yaroslav watched her dance down the stairs of the farmhouse, forgetting utterly about the drained bodies on the bed. He sighed, hefted them over his shoulders and took them outside where he dumped them in an old well.

He loved Mary Alice, but she would be leaving him. Even if she didn't know it, yet. He could see it as clearly, perhaps, as she saw her visions.

**{ x x x }**

His Mary Alice, his sweetheart, had eyes like golden guineas. She was much attached to him, as well, in a way that he had never observed among their kind before, combing his hair and bathing with him in the occasional river. That these activities often led to physical joining he did not mind in the least.

But he did not feel that they were making love, not anymore. And this hurt him, like an ice pick in his ribcage. It wasn't anything she said or did or tried to make him feel – on the contrary. She was a delight to be around, every single night and day of their existence together.

Still, he knew.

One day, he came upon her in a trance. Her sparkling body poised, frozen as her mind played its moving pictures. "Ahhh," she breathed, her smile transported with feeling, her body relaxing utterly to sink to the ground. "Jasper. That's your name."

"Mary Alice," he began, uncomfortable and pulling at the sleeves of the shirt he had acquired from his last meal. "Are you happy with me?"

Her lashes fluttered and she looked aside. "I am, Yaro! You know I am. You are my sire, my friend, my lover. I have never been happier than I have been since you gave me this life. I do not remember my human life _much_, but I know it wasn't this good." She bounded to him, her arms wrapping around him as they had done countless times in the last several years. "You are my world."

He opened his mouth to dispute this point – for there were the men in her visions, too, that she heeded and was taught by – but his little seer froze in the grip of another vision, one that had her crying out so that wildlife cleared the area for miles around.

"No!"

"What?" He lifted her in his arms and ran, not knowing where to go, only sensing that to stay still was dangerous. "What did you see?"

"Attacked! Oh, Yaro, I can't lose you!"

Her terror rolled from her in nearly tangible waves and the former doctor was hard-put to keep moving. Keeping her in his arms was a protective instinct, and she did not argue with it. He had walked the earth for centuries and past experiences had shown them that his instincts were more sharply honed than hers.

"We're safe now, I think. I – I think..." Mary Alice's eyes were black with thirst. Powerful visions could drain her inner resources, they had learned, so he was unsurprised. "Hunt with me?" she asked in a small voice.

It went against his principles, but he agreed. He needed to keep her in his sight, even if she was not to stay with him – he felt a dark shadow take over the bright happiness in which he had spent these past years – he had to know she was safe.

They were in South Dakota at this time. "Elk," Mary Alice murmured. "I see them." With a breath, she lowered herself into a hunter's crouch, a sexy growl rumbling in her chest that sent a bittersweet echo in Yaroslav's own, and ran.

He held his position, watching her. She was not his mate in the sense that vampires found the one partner for their eternity, but he loved her and had not had an opportunity for some time to watch her hunt. An exercise in eroticism, a temptation and a torment. Her lithe figure leapt, extending, before falling to the back of a massive, antlered animal. His own breath came fast as he saw her bite into the beast's throat. Sexual excitement overwhelmed him and he pressed his palm flat against his arousal, wondering why he had denied himself this pleasure – the stunning beauty of his dear one hunting.

So preoccupied was he that he never saw the tall, wiry nomad rush him from the south. His first notice of him was the pain he felt as his head was torn from his body.

"Mary Alice!" His mouth formed the words, but he had no vocal apparatus to make a noise. He could only watch helplessly as the nomad rapidly removed his limbs. The absence of fire gave Yaroslav hope. It was all he could cling to as the half-dressed, barefoot _nekulturny_ bastard knelt next to his head.

"Hi, there. I'm James. That your mate? She's a right handful. Looks playful, too. Let's find out!"

Before he could move, though, Mary Alice arrived. From his disadvantaged perspective, Yaroslav still heard her scream his name before a blur of light and dark hit his assailant from behind, staggering the ragged vampire.

"Yaro!"

James laughed, clearly not taking the petite vampire seriously. At least, not until she ripped one of his arms off, flinging it beyond Yaroslav's view.

_Yes!_ he thought. _Yes! Fight, _maya krasaveetsa_! Fight!_

It was his final thought before the one-armed vampire reached into a half-ripped pocket and pulled out a new Zippo Cigarette Lighter. With a broad, wicked smile, the vampire flicked something, bringing instant flame that flew through the air to Yaroslav's head.

His last view was of his beloved Mary Alice Brandon screaming.

**{ x x x }**

She did not want to remember. Visions guided her as she traveled, for Mary Alice only allowed herself to think of her future, not her past. She couldn't refer to herself as Mary Alice, because she heard it with a slight accent every time. Her name was Alice, now. Guilt dogged every step.

_I should have killed James. I should have ripped off his head and –_

_No! I will not think of it. I won't!_

Perched in an empty apartment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she did her best to control her memories. She let her mind wander with the tall, handsome Southern warrior whom she knew would come to her. It would take him a few years, she thought, but he would come. His name was Jasper Whitlock and he would need her as she had needed someone, once...

And together, they would find the coven of Carlisle Cullen. In this coven, there was a mind reader, and Mary Alice was already doing her level best to teach herself how to hide her shameful past.

_My name is Alice. I am guided by visions of the future. I learned to drink solely from animals by learning from Carlisle Cullen and his coven. I saw my mate, Jasper Whitlock, in a vision and am waiting for him. He will find me in a diner. _

Again and again, she held these notions in the forefront of her mind, reciting the words in English and Russian. Soon, she would learn new languages. Many new languages. Layers of them. Enough to hide her true memories from the mind reader. They would be the best of friends, like dear siblings. Maybe he would keep her secrets for her?

_My name is Alice, I am guided by visions of the future..._


End file.
